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Sunday, August 30, 2009

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Let's face it, weddings can be a little, well, predictable. That why we love it when a couple breaks out of the mold and, say, boogies down the aisle. Same thing with the cake: sure, white-on-white is pretty, but it's also kind of boring. How about a little personality? A little fun? A little pair of adorable bride-and-groom ghost toppers?

Nice! My husband and I used a little Dia de Los Muertos bride and groom. So they were skeletons holding hands w/ a snake around them. We loved it. :) Otherwise our cake was a very simple, delicious carrot cake.

The Event Horizon one just looks yuck, imo. Except for the fact that the airbrushing is a lot more skilled, it doesn't look any different to me than the moldy-appearing, chain bakery wrecks. The King Kong just looks like a hot mess. Too much going on, the idea was cool and the construction is too but when I look at it I just see too much. JMO.

Hmmmm, I'm gettin gmarried in 2011, and this gives me some IDEAS..... The ghost win for cutest, but the aliens? are awesome. If you need a silly bride-to-be for a contest in which she gets the cake of her dreams, just let me know. I will so take one for the team.

These are all amazing. But, I think the only thing missing from the King Kong cake is if Ann Darrow was with him (and thus would have the "bride" and "groom" toppers in an untraditional way). Maybe she is there and I just can't see her, but that would make a great cake even greater.

Hello. Sorry if this is off-topic, but I was curious and this seemed the best way to get an interesting answer.

I know you try to feature occasional fondant-free sweets, and you sometimes describe them as showing what can be done using only buttercream. Other places, too, people talk as if buttercream and fondant are the only options for decorating. Do decorators not use royal icing any more, or is it included under one of the existing options? I'd have thought it pipes easier than buttercream and holds a shape well enough for pre-piping shapes and even 3D decorations. And it tastes better than fondant.

I'm all about the ghost cake and Frankenstein cake. Guess that makes me predictable. Anything Halloweeny is tops in my book. I almost got married on Halloween, but the Karma on All Saints Day was better, so we waited 24 hours.

Omg, I officially know what my wedding cake will be like: Frankenstein all the way, baby! They were all amazing but that last one is truly inspired, sweet, original and yet, in a strange way, looking fresh and simple (not that it was that to make). LOVE IT!

I'm loving the stitched-together cake! But my favorite has to be the Katamari cake. The figures are absolutely perfect, and the proportions of the katamari are flawless. If I wasn't sure that I'd have a simple, cheap wedding, I'd totally want something geeky and awesome like the katamari cake.

Those were fantastic! I was at a wedding yesterday where the wedding cake resembles a Starbucks Frapp :) It was awesome and totally representing the couple who openly admit to being addicted. Their centerpieces were even Starbucks cups filled with sand and tissue paper - to resemble their mocha frapp.

The event horizon cake is mine. My husband and I are huge sci-fi nuts but we wanted to do something a little more obscure and twisted than your typical Enterprise or Star Wars cake. Yes, it is the ship that goes to hell and back, we have a very dark sense of humor. We were just surprised that our caterer was able to come up with anything.

Wow. Event Horizon is one of the most disgusting and disturbing movies I've ever seen. I'm a movie buff and have seen a lot of stuff, but that's the only one that's ever actually made me feel like I might actually vomit from what I was seeing on the screen. I'm kind of scared to think of what couple chose that as a theme for anything at their wedding. O_o

The Event Horizon (never heard of it) cake is pretty gross looking. The airbrushed planets (if that's what they're supposed to be) are done pretty well. But the mildrewed colors just make it look disgusting. IF it wasn't a geeky sci-fi theme, you'd have called it wrecky.

I know though, it's your blog, you get to decide...lol. It still looks like some other cakes you've called wrecks because of the color.

@Pooky--Jen might be better qualified to answer this than I, but I thought I'd give it a shot. =)

Royal icing (what I can remember from poring over my mom's Wilton books as a kid) is very, very hard--like candy, made with confectioner's sugar and meringue powder. You even have to keep it covered with a damp towel while you're using it so it doesn't dry out. It's often used on cookies; it makes a tasty hard shell on gingerbread, etc. It's usually not appropriate for decorating a whole cake (except maybe one of those dusty window display cakes!). Maybe some of the decorations might be made with royal icing but that's about it.

That said--the ghosts are so cute. The Katamari cake is adorable! And the Frankenstein is genius. <3

I know royal icing is hard (unless you soften it with a little glycerine), but I've often covered and decorated cakes with it (I never used meringue powder though; I don't know if that's widely available over here) and my old (home cooking) books are full of advice on how to pipe flowers and animals etc. with it.

Is it that people don't want hard coverings on cakes any more? Over here, it's the traditional covering for wedding, christening and Christmas cakes, so I find it a bit surprising, but it makes sense.

I was really most puzzled by the idea that a cake without fondant would have to have everything piped in buttercream (or possibly chocolate). Surely royal icing is so useful for making sugar decorations that it would be the obvious choice?

According Symmetry Magazine, the physics cake photo was taken by Reidar Hahn of Fermilab. (http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/cms/?pid=1000426). It is unclear who the cake was made for or who made it, but I'm sure you could contact Reidar and ask.

We used it in a feature article about physicists who married physicists in Symmetry magazine. (story here: http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/cms/?pid=1000426) We commissioned the cake specifically for the article. It wasn't used in an actual wedding, sorry to say.

The writing on the cake is what is called the "Standard Model Langragian". It is the equation that best encapsulates everything we know about the fundamental particles and forces of nature, all wrapped up in one package. It's a beast of a thing, but the universe is kinda complicated!

I (sadly) haven't been keeping up with your blog - this reminds me of the rock-em sock-em robot cake at our friends wedding. I made her hot pink and black gown -http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b16/mmesser/BTBeccaswedding089.jpg

and here's the cake: http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b16/mmesser/BTBeccaswedding008.jpg

I fell in love with the first cake (ghost cake) when I saw it. Because of that cake my fiance and I have picked October 30, 2010 for our wedding date. How many times has a wedding date been set by a cake?

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A Cake Wreck is any cake that is unintentionally sad, silly, creepy, inappropriate - you name it. A Wreck is not necessarily a poorly-made cake; it's simply one I find funny, for any of a number of reasons. Anyone who has ever smeared frosting on a baked good has made a Wreck at one time or another, so I'm not here to vilify decorators: Cake Wrecks is just about finding the funny in unexpected, sugar-filled places.

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